by Mitch Goth
Before the morning dew had dried off the countless blades of grass, the dull beams of the morning sun caused a stir through bleak surroundings. A body shifted and contorted, attempting to prepare itself for a new day. The cot it sat on was not ideal, but this body preferred the cot over the old, hole-filled bed that the recreational vehicle provided.
This body, known to himself only as Michael, rose up from his cot and slid his small spectacles over his eyes. He rubbed his bald head as he stretched his back, caused a few audible cracks to come from his bones. He hated the cot, but it was still a step higher than any jail cell.
As Michael stood up and slipped on his shoes, grogginess set in. He needed a pick up if he would get through another day. But while most people drank coffee or energy drinks to help them maneuver through their day-to-day lives, Michael had something different and all the better.
For a moment, Michael looked around the large, empty room. Some time before then, this room was a production floor. The tattered and worn sign dangling off a single chain above the main door said cookware was produced in the building. Support pillars and his cot were all that filled the space now, aside from the spare bolts and cookware pieces left behind.
This floor was much like the rest of the large, five-story industrial hub. Emptiness, cut through by building supports and the single freight elevator at the far end. The only exception to this was the first floor where the loading docks and offices were, but that was all empty too, sans the loading bay and its mobile home inhabitant. Not even mice stirred in the building anymore. Only two souls resided in the structure.
Michael strode across the open space, his footsteps echoing through the room as he walked. He imagined what it must've been like when the factory operated, all the sounds that must have come. Now the only worker that remained was him, and he wasn't partial to making much noise when he worked. Noise level was more than just an annoyance to him. It was the difference between freedom and lethal injection.
Once he reached the stairwell beside the large, rusted up freight elevator, he picked a short pole out of an umbrella stand beside the stairs and began his ascent. Michael never liked the freight elevator. The building wasn't that tall and the elevator made a hellish amount of noise. The walls of the structure were thick enough to hold in all the noise of an abuzz factory, but he still didn't like the sound. It was shrill, like a suffocating cat. Far from the first thing he wanted to hear in the morning.
Michael reached the next floor and entered the large, open room, eyes focused on one thing. Upon entering the space, his gaze turned left. Beyond the freight elevator, towards a small space between the wall cordoning off the elevator shaft and the wall that kept the outside air where it belonged. This was the only modification he made to the building. A simple one, yet effective.
In its old age and years of disuse, the exterior of the factory was hemorrhaging its red brick. There was still a base foundation of solid concrete, and the majority of the bricks stayed stuck on the walls. But, around the perimeter of the building, hundreds of broken down bricks sat in the overgrown grass. He'd gotten all he needed.
He used the old bricks to block off the cell-like space between the elevator shaft and the perimeter wall. The only opening was a thin, short entranceway, sealed by a rusted portion of the large iron fence that used to run around the factory property. A few hinges and locks later, Michael had an operational holding cell.
Michael knelt down in front of the gated opening and peered inside. There was hardly any light in there now. There was about a half hour window of time throughout the day where the sun would shine into the cell through the small entrance. Outside of that, the tiny room was pitch dark all day. Despite this, he could still see a shadow shifting listlessly around
That was one good thing he liked about the freight elevator. The ruckus made always awoke his prisoners and let them know that he was coming up to see them. It was fun to do in the beginning because they would make a big fuss about it then. Now though, it was less intense. The girl had been his for almost a week, her power had faded.
Michael hoped for an element of surprise as he slipped the pole in his hand through the gate. As soon as the end touched the shifting body in the cell, the pole let out a small burst of light and a low buzz and crack. In an instant, the screaming restarted. After the moment of screaming all she did was push herself into the far corner and hyperventilate.
The pole inched further in and Michael touched it to her again and she yelled again. That time she wept afterward. In the darkness, she didn't move away from the pole, she couldn't see it. That was what made the process so easy, and so wonderful. She never saw it coming. None of them ever did.
He zapped her once again and she moved into the other corner, just to be touched twice more. The cries became more and more audible with each touch of the short prod. She tried to swat it in the air. She was successful once, but only hit the tip and was electrocuted further.
"Please leave me alone," Megan Mickelson's soft voice came through her tears. "Please, leave me alone."
Michael didn't say a word. The only thing he was there for was to send her short bursts of electrical pain. Talking took time away from that, and Michael was not one to waste any time. He touched her with the pole again and she jolted and yelped just like before.
"Please." Her small cries transformed to sobs. "Kill me if you're going to, stop fucking around with me!"
This response raised one of Michael's eyebrows. This girl was slightly different from the others he had worked with. Most of them took another day or two, or even three days more before they asked for death. He wasn't sure whether this meant the girl wasn't much of a fan of life to begin with, or that she was just weak-willed. Either way, Michael had gotten what he needed from her.
As he stood up and walked away from the cell, Michael felt an invigoration. The same invigoration he had experienced with all the previous girls Outside in life, it was just monotonous and murderous to him. Now he felt alive, able to take on his days.
It had been that way since the beginning. He had always needed something to get adrenaline surging through him. Coffee was useless, life was useless, he needed something to make him become truly alive. It started with animals, strays in the neighborhood. When it began, he knew it would lead somewhere, but never here. Never to this degree. But now he was here, taking lives to feel alive, and he wouldn't do it any other way. This was something no stray cat or dog could ever give. It was holding onto a life, taking it in small doses. And once the life and the fervor that came with it depleted, he would be able to take the ultimate invigoration, confident he had squeezed the last wills of life out of his forbidden fruit.
As Michael deposited the prod back in the umbrella stand he chuckled to himself. He think of himself as a sadist and found no humor in his actions. But he did find something rather comical about the motive. To kill and feel alive, it was so odd it always brought a smile to his face.
17
